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Mondays are always the busiest day for the psychology team at Lviv Clinical Hospital of Emergency and Intensive Care in western Ukraine. Follow psychiatrist Dr. Oleh Berezyuk and his team around the hospital as they meet with new and existing patients across the rehabilitation, intensive care, surgery and internal medicine units.

Last November, a delegation from the Canadian Red Cross visited the Mexican Red Cross team in Nogales, a city in the state of Sonora bordering the U.S. state of Arizona. Many of the residents of this arid desert town came from other parts of the country to work in one of the numerous cross-border manufacturing plants, or maquiladoras, that produce goods for international export.

Lebanon has been facing an evolving and complex humanitarian crisis for several years, generating widespread and growing needs for humanitarian assistance. The people of Lebanon are the ones bearing the brunt of the impact of a series of devastating crises: a complex economic and financial crisis, which has been exacerbated by COVID-19 and the explosion that rocked the Port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

Canadian Red Cross’ Wajid Mughal uses his experience starting a new life in a new country to support Ukrainians arriving in Canada. 
 

Millions of people are being impacted by the conflict in Ukraine - these impacts are also being felt by people thousands of kilometres away. For some countries already facing food insecurity, the interruption to the food supply chain will be devastating.

The Gara de Nord train station in Bucharest is a busy place; it’s Romania’s main rail connection point with the rest of Europe. Since the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, thousands of people fleeing the conflict have passed through this station. The Romanian Red Cross with its partners runs a quiet refuge in the midst of the bustle, a place for women and children to wait for connecting trains or other travel onward.

It has now been almost two months since I packed my bags and headed to Europe to support the Red Cross response to the conflict in Ukraine. I can’t help but think of the millions of people who have also had to leave their homes, under very different circumstances, unsure of what they will eventually return to. The word “millions” doesn’t do these people justice. They aren’t just some anonymous number.

Canadian Kathy Mueller is currently working with the International Federation of Red Cross Societies as communications coordinator for the Ukraine humanitarian crisis; here, she shares her experiences.